Translation

Counsellor [Paul] Ehrlich, to whom we owe identification of the chemical structure and effect of atoxyl, has succeeded in finding, through ingenious and indefatigable work, an arsenical, arsenophenylglycine, which cures every animal with induced sleeping sickness.

From this finding it was easy to assume that a drug that is so immediately effective in animals infected with trypanosomes would also have an effect on syphilitic processes in patients with progressive paralysis, and that the Wassermann reaction might be influenced by it. The influence on the latter is actually true in many cases of progressive paralysis. Entrusted by Counsellor Ehrlich with a clinical trial of arsenophenylglycine for 7 months, I succeeded, together with my colleagues from Uchtspring, to determine the dose and route of administration tolerated without harm by patients with progressive paralysis, and which brought about permanent recession of the [positive] Wassermann reaction. This happened without any disastrous incidents. In some cases the previously strongly positive Wassermann reaction disappeared as early as 24 hours after the treatment, and has since remained negative…

In total, 31 patients with progressive paralysis were treated, all of whom had previously had a definite positive Wassermann reaction (repeatedly demonstrated); 7 of them lost the [positive] reaction completely, in one it returned after 5 weeks, [but] in the others it remained negative. In a larger number, the Wassermann reaction decreased substantially, but returned to its former level after some time. Initially we had not treated patients with high doses, so some of the cases may not have responded for this reason. It seems that it was cases of less than 2 years duration of paralysis who were mostly influenced…